Major Medical Breakthrough May Cure Type 1 Diabetes

It is, without a doubt, one of the most
exciting discoveries ever made in the
search for a cure for Type 1 diabetes.
The discovery? Transplanted cells from the
spleen appear to develop into insulin-producing
pancreatic islet cells in adult
mice.

The worldwide announcement of this
surprising discovery—which demonstrates
the regeneration of the pancreas, and
subsequently the reversal of Type 1
diabetes—was made in November 2003.
But on March 13, 2004, in a special
presentation at A Day of Hope at
Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho
Mirage, California, the Desert Diabetes
Club will welcome Denise Faustman, MD,
PhD, Director of the Massachusetts
General Hospital (MGH) Immunobiology
Laboratory and Principal Investigator of the
study, along with Lee Iacocca, Founder of
The Iacocca Foundation, which has provided
nearly $6 million during the past seven years to
support Dr. Faustman’s research.
(See Lee Iacocca story, this issue)

According to David M. Nathan, MD, Director of
the MGH Diabetes Center, findings from this
study suggest that “…patients with fully
established diabetes could have their diabetes
reversed.”

“[These findings were] kind of amazing to us,”
Dr. Faustman says. “This is one of the few
instances in which a major organ in an adult
mammal has been enabled to regenerate itself. It
is a breakthrough that brings a new respect to the
spleen, an organ often dismissed as having no
purpose at all.”

Several years ago, Dr. Faustman and her team at
Massachusetts General Hospital—the oldest and
largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical
School—first discovered that when spleen cells
from non-diabetic mice were injected into those
that were developing Type 1 diabetes, the donor
spleen cells “re-educated” the recipient’s immune
system and stopped the destruction of the islet
cells.

Now, their further follow-up study shows that the
recipients are not only producing new insulin-secreting
islet cells, but that the donor spleen
cells are rapidly transforming themselves into
insulin-producing cells as well.

“What we have been able to do changes the
long-standing belief that adult islet tissue
regeneration would not be robust or have a long-lasting
impact on blood sugar control,” says
Dr. Faustman. “We have successfully demonstrated
that we can re-grow cells inside the body in a
naturally occurring rodent model.”

MGH has secured fast-track approval from the
Food and Drug Administration to move this
science into human clinical trials, and Lee
Iacocca and The Iacocca Foundation are working
closely with MGH to ensure the $11 million goal
is met for this next phase of the research.

Diabetes is a devastating disease. It is the fifth
leading cause of death in the United States,
contributing to more than 200,000 deaths
annually. Over 17 million
Americans have diabetes
(5.4 million of whom do not know they
have the disease), and each year an
additional 800,000 people are
diagnosed with diabetes.

In addition to the almost two million
Americans with Type 1
diabetes, approximately 30,000
more individuals—mostly
children—are diagnosed with the disease
each year.

“Dr. Faustman’s research has
significant implications not only to
the future of diabetes treatment, but
also to other autoimmune
diseases,” says Kathryn Iacocca
Hentz, President of The Iacocca
Foundation. “It may someday be
possible to apply her technique in
reversing rheumatoid arthritis,
multiple sclerosis and lupus.”